Utterly consistent bands

To me, Taake and Absu deliver consistent albums. It seems though that consistency is in the eye of the beholder. There seems to be a difference here in consistency in quality and consistency in style... As for Summoning perhaps the quality has been consistent, the style has not...

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Septicemia

They've release FOUR high quality albums along with a great EP and managing to put out only two unexceptional releases (though I say this having listened once to both Trading Pieces and Crown of Souls) throughout the course of their 15-year career.

They've release FOUR high quality albums along with a great EP and managing to put out only two unexceptional releases (though I say this having listened once to both Trading Pieces and Crown of Souls) throughout the course of their 15-year career.

This was one of my choices, as well. For a band with a limited aesthetic repertoire (and in a subgenre where differentiation is a difficult task, at best), that they've managed to be relevant at all is cause for celebration.

I've only listened to Crown of Souls once, as well, but plan to delve more and weigh in on it soon. Trading Pieces is a bit murky and probably the most generic thing they've produced.

There's also some correlation with the generations that produced these bands.

Most heavy metal bands started out raw and vital, sold out in the mid-80's and spent the last 10-20 years selling mediocre albums to Germans and South Americans. Ditto for speed metal and hardcore bands except they were 5 years later and so appropriately discovered grunge, or backwards-baseball-cap-metal.

Most death metal bands died/changed style around '93. Those who didn't, have produced 5-10 clones of the same album since.

Early 90's black metal bands are either no longer around, or transformed. Late 90's black metal bands never produced anything original, nor are going to, so consistency is there - the consistency of a moldy cake.

I agree with some of the previous posters that Summoning represents consistency in Metal more so than most bands - in my mind, more than any other band. Most of the best Metal bands have a lifecycle whereby which they release a solid debut album, an even stronger and more conceptually rich sophemore album, and usually another solid, though less conceptually consistent, third album before burning out of energy and either breaking up or regressing to a pattern of sub-par releases. Deicide, Morbid Angel, and Slayer, though they have realised more than three quality albums, all fall in line with this pattern. Is this pattern a reflection of the correlation between youthful energy of Metal and its inspiration? I would say so.

I think that the most consistent bands are usually the ones that are the most conceptually and ideologically firmly rooted. Summoning, Burzum, Graveland, and Averse Sefira all come to mind. This trait is more visible in Black Metal, which as I have noted in a previous post is more charachterized by a resurgance of belief and ideas, rather than the general lack of belief that charachterizes Death Metal.

Change is not a requirement, but when you just start repeating yourself, as in there is no growth and no new ideas to express then it is just pointless and redundant. Its like the black metal scene today, there are TONS of bands doing the exact same thing that the early bands were doing, the only difference is that they are only repeating things that have already been said. Sometimes repetition is necessary for someone to get an idea, but if it continues long after its understood then it just gets fucking annoying.

I do not think it matters if what you said has been said before, only that what you say is great. If a modern black metal outfit released an album the equal of 'Hvis Lyset Tar Oss' in both quality and aesthetic I would not denounce it as nothing more than an idea said almost twenty years ago, I would praise the album as being the equal of 'Hvis Lyset Tar Oss'. What makes music powerful is the feelings it brings forth in man and not the year in which it was written.

Like Averse Sefira, this band has only improved with each release. I have been put off initially by each of their full lengths. The cliche jazzy interludes and intro's. Tech-whatever trappings. The honest truth is that these guys never lose the metal throughout their music, which is more than can be said for most techy tech bands. Traditional and "progressive." Wonderful command of melody, even in the spacey moments that sound like pure cheese at first listen. It is unfortunate that this taint keeps one from enjoying truly great albums. Gorguts Obscura suffers this same blight upon initial listenings, especially if one finds oneself coming into the work at a later date.